The dogs were part of the cargo when the Mounts — Natalie, her little sister, Abbie Jo, her mother, Marni and her father, Brian — moved to Bradenton from New Jersey three years ago. Brian Mount is an entomologist who keeps “projects” in baggies in the freezer. (“Not quite as much as he is,” Natalie says when asked if she is also into bugs.)

Earlier this year, Natalie began thinking about what she could do for the service project required in connection with her bat mitzvah in January. The easiest thing, she figured, would be to spend the required 13 hours doing something she loved — volunteering at the local animal shelter.

Her mom, Marni, urged Natalie to consider something that might connect her more deeply to her Jewish roots. Marni Mount was adopted by a Jewish family and is raising her children in the faith. Two days a week, Natalie, a student at Haile Middle School, also attends Hebrew school at Temple Emanu-El.

How about finding an Israeli pen pal, Marni suggested. You could practice your Hebrew and she could practice her English. Maybe some of the other kids from Hebrew school would want to become pen pals too? That sounded appealing to her daughter.

“But before I met Lia,” Natalie says, “I had no idea how I was going to make that happen.”

Lia Silber is 12, too. She lives in Tel Mond, Israel — a “sister city” to Sarasota — and she and her mother were invited to Florida last year after Lia won a playwriting contest through Florida Studio Theatre’s Young Playwrights program.

The two girls met at an evening service at Natalie’s temple and hit it off.

“We just started talking to each other about 12-year-old girl things,” Natalie says. “It was like talking to any friend from school.”

Natalie realized Lia might be the conduit for her project. First she had to explain what a pen pal was. Once she did “Lia thought it was a cool idea and she wanted to do it, too.”

Natalie’s teacher connected with a peer at Shelbana, Lia’s school in Tel Mond; soon, 21 students came on board.

Letters back and forth take about two weeks, which tries the patience of scribes accustomed to modern tech. (Emails between snail mail missives are permitted.) Given computer software alphabet limitations and the Israeli students’ more accomplished language skills, most of the letters are in English. The subject matter is largely drawn from the preoccupations of a 12-year-old’s world.

In another: “By the way, I saw you wrote me in Hebrew and that’s very impressive. Oh! And for the next time, in Hebrew we write my name like this.”

But in June, when the troubled relationship between Israelis and Palestinians escalated, the letters began to take on a certain gravitas. Watching CNN, Natalie became worried about her friend’s safety.

“I always knew that Israel and Palestine weren’t like . . . best buddies,” she says. “But I didn’t know exactly where Tel Mond was and I was concerned for her.”

She wrote Lia asking what was happening there “from a 12-year-old’s point of view.” Lia wrote: “It’s not the first time this is happening. But it is the first time I ever heard an alarm in my house.”

She reassured her friend that Israel’s “iron dome” would protect her family from rockets. But in the next sentence, she expressed fear for her uncle and grandfather in Tel Aviv. And her tone turned to dismay when she wrote that “Hamas tells all the world how bad we are and what happens is our fault.”

Like Lia, Natalie is emotionally torn.

“I don’t want bad things to happen to innocent kids,” she says. “I don’t want them to hurt people, but I don’t want my own people to be hurt, either.”

Natalie has no doubt that if she met a 12-year-old Palestinian girl, “it would probably be just the same way and we’d be fast friends.”

So, to a 12-year-old, the conflict doesn’t make any sense.

Next year, Natalie and her family are planning a visit to Israel — that is, says her mother, if the war is over. Natalie can hardly wait to see Lia again.

Meanwhile, all she can do is keep writing. “I just say, ‘Keep your hopes up.’ I think it’s probably a comfort to them to get a letter from someone in the U.S. who they think cares.”